Uranium City
Uranium City is a city-state in former Alaska (see notes), founded around uranium mining. It was first shown in the world map in Shamballa (prog 701). The city is surrounded by hundreds of small mining towns in the tundra. History In 2106, the notorious Hole-In-The-Head gang - which included Harmony Kreig and Dreen - were finally busted. Kreig escaped into the tundra, becoming a hired gun. Dreen would become the head of Dreen Corp and by 2117 his corporation, and others, held a vast amount of power in Uranium City. Under Dreen Corp's influence, Uranium City had legalised and regulated the sex industry within the Strip district. EMulator drugs (Emotional Manipulators) were also legal, allowing anyone to buy the emotion or personality trait of choice as long as it was a positive emotion; negative emotions ("neg-em") like Fear and Anger were sold illegally in backstreet operations, with the drug Amok causing spree killings (Amok was secretly a Dreen Corp creation and being tested on the citizens); and a subcultue of "memmers", downloading copies of other people's memories into their heads, had sprung up. Dreen Corp's EMulators were able to force people to be happy and have fun. The Emotional Liberation Army paramilitary fought against Dreen Corp and Justice Department in the name of "freeing the emotions of the workers." Megazine 2.73-4: "Harmony: Transient 114" Kreig was captured and return to Uranium City in 2117; she was brainwashed and turned into an obstacle in the death game "Run For Your Life". Her gang's old techspert Lang, now with the ELA, downloaded her memories back into her and she teamed up with the ELA to broadcast a subliminal mind virus into the city. This rewrote people's minds and encouraged them to use neg-ems as a way to "free their emotions from the chains of corporate slavery".Harmony: Transient 114: Megazine 2.73-76 Dreen Corp reacted to this by taking control of the other companies and Justice Department, in 2118 there was martial law over the city: nobody could enter or leave, Judges blanketed the streets, and dissidents were taken away to internment camps. Subliminal messages were used to trigger murderous rages in citizens. In the resulting battle, Harmony was able to kill Dreen himself and detonate a bio-bomb in the Hall of Justice.Harmony: Genocide Losing the powers-that-be had a major impact on the city: in 2135, it was a more peaceful, relaxed provincial city, with a more informal Judge force. Dredd pursued AWOL cadets to Uranium, where they had been living civilian lives; the locals noted that they rarely got newcomers in the city. Prog 1835 City geography Traditionally, the city was divided into four radial sectors"Background" pages for Harmony in later Megazines: *The Core, the centre and home of towering corporate headquarters *Indcomp, the industrial zone containing the uranium refineries. *The Strip, a 50-mile long and 1-mile wide hedonistic "Las Vegas of the North" (miners laboured for months to earn enough to spend a few days in the Strip) *The Burbs, the clean, air-conditioned, and tightly controlled homes of factory workers; In 2135 Uranium City had become a much smaller settlement, more like a large town than a city-state.Prog 1835: "The Forsaken" Features The Transarctica Express runs from Uranium to Euro-City.Harmony: Homeward Bound (Megazine 2.62) TV stations included UCB 12, which broadcast news and gameshows.Megazine 2.73 Justice Department ]] While Uranium City has a Justice Department, they did little to restrict Dreen Corp and other corporations - and in 2118, they were taken over completely by Dreen. The Department was run out of the Hall of Justice (the last known Chief Judge being Chief Judge Rigour) and trained its cadets in the Academie du Justice.Wetworks by Dave Stone It had plainclothes Detectives similar to Brit-Cit. It was supposed to run circuit Judges to the mining towns but in practice, local law enforcement was left to poorly equipped, apathetic sheriffs. The more remote towns relied on hired guns to protect them instead. The highest security prison was called the Birdhouse. In 2118, the Judges would be massacred when a bio-bomb detonated in the Hall. By 2135, the Judges were a more relaxed force and included people who'd worked in civilian jobs (a Judge at the city gates was a former bouncerProg 1835: "The Forsaken"). For some reason, they no longer wore their old uniforms and sported Mega-City One's uniforms instead. Notes *There is a real-life Uranium City in Canada but the strip Harmony placed the city in a future Alaska instead. Wetworks stated it was part of Canada (hence the French name for the Academy). *Until Judge Dredd: The Forsaken, Uranium City had been exclusively featured in spinoff strip Harmony. References Category: City Category: Locations